William,Interesting observation. I'm only slightly older and I have the same expectation regarding the lack of adults.I'm reminded of Noel Coward's delightful song, from the mid-1950s IIRC, "What's Going to Happen to the Children".Worth a listen if yours not familiar with it. Same with Cole Porter's "Anything Goes".As the Wise Man says, "Nihil novum sub sole."

As Coward observed, even then the "grown ups" were trying, and had been trying very hard for at least a century, to stop growing up. Wars interrupted the trajectory but no one learned their lessons. There have been various social experiments over the last 50-odd years to do away with children so that the "Youth" don't have to grow up and take care of them (or confront ageing and mortality).

But it all amounts to the same thing: everything's been downhill since Adam took the Fruit and ate.